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It started in a casual conversation, like so many cool ideas do. It's become a minor obsession of mine for the past few years. "If you had to pick a definitive movie to represent each U.S. state," I'd ask friends and family members, "What would they be?"

Not a unique question, I'm sure, but one that I was bound and determined to see through its bitter end to a publication on MRFH. It's a deceptively simple topic that is a monumental task to grapple with. Sure, finding movies for California are easy, but what about the definitive Wisconsin film? And speaking of California, what ONE movie is more definitive than the rest? Do you focus on a major city in that state, or try to find a movie that gives a sweeping overview of the entire region?

So while I'm quite sure you're going to disagree with me on one — if not many more — of the movie choices on this list, and probably write in to chastise me that I forgot a few (which I'll be kicking myself for, I'm sure), take a deep breath and understand my set rules for this article:

1. They are all my picks. Mine. I'm not trying to figure out what the definitive South Carolina movie would be for a majority of moviegoers, just me. I hate speaking for other people, anyway.

2. Each movie selected has to feature that state and its regional qualities, to give a "definitive" flavor of its location. However, while the movie has to be set there, it DOESN'T necessarily have to be filmed there. Helps if it was, but that's not a deal breaker for me.

3. Travel movies, for the most part, are excluded from this list. Sure, I could've bid Tommy Boy for its Sandusky, Ohio settings, but since it spends a bulk of the film traveling outside of the state, it can't be eligable for a definitive state movie. The opposite might apply: if a movie mostly features one state, but does a bit of traveling outside, I might include it.

4. It doesn't have to be a popular or well-known film. Some of the movies on this list might be unfamiliar to you, or even considered as "bombs". That's okay; if a movie captures the spirit of the state as well as it can, then it's in the running for the list. And besides, some states were so starved for movie material that I had to dip into lesser-known and indie productions.

So there you go. Join me, as I travel from coast to coast, giving myself brain pain by weeding out the candidates for the 50 films here.

1. Alabama - Forrest Gump

So right off the bat, I'm violating rule number three, which goes to show you what a slap-dash effort this article's gonna be. Still, I'll allow the bending of the rules in this case, because for all of Forrest's travels, Alabama gets the lion's share of the spotlight in this film. Of course, it advertises that Alabama is full of child beaters, mentally retarded football players and a large shrimp-centric cult, but that's how we're gonna roll with this one.

Honorable Mentions: Sweet Home Alabama, My Cousin Vinny

2. Alaska - Mystery, Alaska

Due to his violent anti-social behavior, Australian Russell Crowe was banished henceforth to a small hamlet tucked away in the snow-capped mountains of Alaska. Not content with his monopoly over the Alaskan oil pipeline, Crowe began a rough-and-tumble hockey team that went on to spit on the faces of the NHL. Kudos to Mystery, Alaska, for revealing to us that isolated mountain villages are cesspools of flannel and insanity, but the kind that makes us sort of wish we'd live there.

Honorable Mentions: Insomnia, 30 Days Of Night

3. Arizona - Raising Arizona

In which we learn that Arizona is not only a fine state covered in photogenic pebbles, but it's also a great surname for middle-class car salesmen. We're given a glimpse of Arizona from the bottom up: trailer parks, white trash, escaped convicts, slapstick bank robberies, child abduction and bounty hunters. No wonder all of the senior citizens want to move there!

Honorable Mentions: Pump Up The Volume, Just One Of The Guys

4. Arkansas - The Legend of Boggy Creek

Also known as the Southern State We Always Forget Is On The Map, and the Place That Spawned Bill Clinton. Seeing as how these aren't exactly compelling reasons to move there, Charles B. Pierce made a pseudo-documentary in the 70's claiming that "The Natural State" is also home to the Fouke Monster, i.e. Bigfoot/Sasquatch. He's a timid, beautiful expression of the untamed bounties of nature, except he wants to eat you alive or something. I'm in! Bonus points to the fact that this sort-of scary movie was rated G, and made little tykes wet their shorts when they saw it.

Honorable Mention: Sling Blade, Walk The Line

5. California - The Karate Kid

I could easily develop a permanent eye twitch over what I consider to be the "California Question". Because of California's egocentric hubris, nearly 97% of all movies ever made are either (a) set in California, (b) set in Hollywood, (c) set in L.A. or (d) set in Sacramento. It's a wide field to choose from, and I'm a little sick and tired of California thinking they're the only interesting U.S. state out there, so... Karate Kid it is. Like it, don't like it, I don't care. It's the movie that has a definitive "Californian" feel, to me. There's a beach party, high schools where everyone roams outside between classes, an overly elaborate party and the whole rich-vs-poor division going on. Sweep the leg, Cali.

Honorable Mentions: The Player, Clueless, L.A. Story

6. Colorado - The Shining

Maybe I should stop choosing films that highlight the absolute worst feature a state has to offer -- in this case, a haunted hotel built on a sacred Indian burial ground and tainted with alcoholism. Then again, I happened to spend a little over a year living in this rugged, pointy state, and I have it on good authority that pretty much every hotel out there is infested with a netherworld tenant of some kind.

Honorable Mentions: Cannibal! The Musical, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut

7. Connecticut - PCU

When you think Connecticut, you think privileged upper-class preppies attending prestigious universities and early tee times. When movies think Connecticut, they think pretty much the same, except that Movie California wants the exclusive rights to begin with the letter "C", and thus the often-underplayed bloody ground war between the two neighboring states. PCU taught us many fascinating features of this land, including the "Blue Laws" which forbid the sale of alcohol after 8pm and the sale of Jeremy Piven after 10.

Honorable Mentions: The Ref, The Skulls

8. Delaware - Fight Club

I've learned an important lesson from this list, and that is: nobody likes Delaware. At all. Of course, since the state looks like the withered finger of a crone beckoning you to your eternal damnation, can you blame them? It's probably the hardest state to nail down with a movie, so after much research we're going with a tenuous connection to Fight Club. There are enough clues in the movie that suggest the nameless setting is in fact Wilmington, Delaware, and we're going to hurt our brains if we have to ponder on this any longer.

Honorable Mentions: That part in Wayne's World where they use their new blue screen to travel to the "magical land of... Delaware!"

9. Florida - Big Trouble

Like California, Florida really exists as its own separate universe of wacky delusion. In this case, Dave Barry scribed a spot-on novel about the crazy goings-on of various Miamians, which got made into a decent comedy that pretty much nobody other than Drew and I saw. So... maybe it doesn't exist. This is all a dream! Ooooo!

Honorable Mentions: Ace Ventura, Wild Things

10. Georgia - Gone With The Wind

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn about this state, with its omnipresent humidity and overt fondness for peaches. But since all Georgia residents live on plantations and are still touchy about the whole 'Sherman's March to the Sea' fiasco, this deserves a spot of recognition. Lord, have mercy!"

Honorable Mentions: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Deliverance

11. Hawaii - Lilo & Stitch

Our first animated movie on the list, it took an intergalactic menace to bring the spotlight on a relatively unseen (in film) locale: the island of Kaua'i. Its use of native Hawaiians gave Lilo & Stitch the edge over 50 First Dates, as did its showcase of all the Hawaii staples -- hula dancing, fire juggling, surfing and volcanos. Plus, you have some great alien-on-alien action there, and if that isn't "exotic", I don't know what is.

Honorable Mentions: 50 First Dates, Blue Hawaii

12. Idaho - Napoleon Dynamite

If you knew, dear readers, how often the song "Private Idaho" by the B-52's popped into my head every time I crossed this state, then you'd know the depth of my agony. So let's just call a potato a potato and give the state over to Napoleon Dynamite, who let us know that even now, Idaho is still proudly holding onto the year 1982 in all its glory and llama pride.

Honorable Mentions: Twin Falls Idaho, My Own Private Idaho

13. Illinois - Ferris Bueller's Day Off

I was actually surprised by how many great Illinois movies there were, and just like New York, none of them really stretched past the megacity proper. When I ran this list past my friends and family and they asked what I picked for this state, my choice of Ferris got a universal nod. It's not just a terrific flick, but John Hughes manages to take us on a whirlwind tour around Chicago in 102 minutes, from the suburbs to Wrigley Field to the Sears Tower and the Art Institute of Chicago. Plus, a very special visit by Abe Froman.

Honorable Mentions: The Untouchables, The Fugative, The Blues Brothers, Wayne's World

14. Indiana - Hoosiers

I spent a good chunk of my youth in this flat-as-a-pancake state, and as such, I felt a special responsibility to assign just the right movie to it. Out of the three films I came up with (all sports movies, natch), I had seen Rudy the most, but I know that many Hoosiers are partial to, well, Hoosiers. High school basketball is much beloved by the folks in Indiana, and I don't wish to betray them here. But I don't think I would've gone wrong with my other choices, either.

Honorable Mentions: Breaking Away, Rudy

15. Iowa - The Straight Story

As, y'know, slow as The Straight Story is, it's one of those few midwestern movies that does right by the many decent and interesting people that live there -- and don't, according to some sin assigned by Hollywood, have the common sense to move to the east or west coast. It's a different kind of life, in Iowa. That don't mean it's bad.

Honorable Mentions: Field of Dreams, The Bridges of Madison County

16. Kansas - The Day After

My original choice here was "Twister", but I didn't do my homework to realize that Twister takes place in Oklahoma (d'oh!). Long before Jericho ever made it geekily fashionable to nuke the world and isolate Kansas, this 1983 TV movie showcased all sorts of nuclear mischief in the unlikeliest of states.

Honorable Mentions: High Noon, The Ice Harvest

17. Kentucky - Elizabethtown

Did you know that there are nine towns in the U.S. named "Elizabethtown"? That's just one of the useful facts you'll gain by reading this article! Well, Kentucky has one, Orlando Bloom popped up there some day with a camcorder and a $50 million budget, and Cameron Crowe keeps befuddling me why he's been muddling through moviemaking since his peak in 1989. Yeah, Jerry McGuire doesn't count.

Honorable Mentions: The Insider, Stripes

18. Louisiana - The Green Mile

Down home Southern hospitality includes freshly baked cornbread, luxurious holding areas and all the electricity you can stand coursing through your veins -- and then some! Why not pop a squat on the Green Mile with good ol' boy Tom Hanks and his infected urethra? It might just teach you that there's more to this state than gumbo and breast-bearing beads!

Honorable Mentions: Ray, The Apostle

19. Maine - Pet Sematary

Maine has been under a horror siege by the macabre master Stephen King since the late 70's, and its citizens are near fed up with the things living in the sewers, pets being resurrected as evil zombie-things, and hordes of King fans swamping Bangor in search of an autograph. Still, this is a hell of a place to spend on Halloween, and the MRFH travel guide recommends that you don't take any proffered candy.

Honorable Mentions: Shawshank Redemption, IT

20. Maryland - The Blair Witch Project

A fictional movie about a fictional witch and three fictional lunkheads getting lost in the woods became a very real fact of life for the denziens of Burkittsville, Maryland, as people swamped the town after the unexpected success of the indie project. My friend Bob and his brother Steve went camping outside Burkittsville, for Bob's 28th birthday, and although Bob came back missing his left eye and most of his soul, I think all parties concerned considered it a fun time.

Honorable Mentions: Hairspray, Diner

21. Massachusetts - With Honors

I've resigned myself to knowing that most people see this as a formulaic, cheeseball film, but there's something in here that just resonates with me. So. There. Anyhow, seeing as how Harvard and its supremely messed-up bunch of inhabitants is one of the flawed gems of this state, it'd be a shame not to, you know, get this chance to snipe at them.

Honorable Mentions: Good Will Hunting

22. Michigan - RoboCop

Since moving to the outskirts of Motown, I've become sensative to the phenomenon of movies picking on little ol' Detroit. Sure, it's not the cleanest place, and crack houses exist literally beside million-dollar estates, and our mayor is currently in the middle of a sex scandal, and we infected the wold with Eminem, Kid Rock AND the Insane Clown Posse, but we still have a perverse pride for the place. Besides -- it's the only town deemed so irredeemable that we apparently need cyborg cops to patrol the streets to keep the peace.

Honorable Mentions: Grosse Pointe Blank, 8 Mile, Escanaba in Da Moonlight

23. Minnesota - Fargo

Let's get this out of the way, because it came up a lot in the making of this list: Fargo does NOT count as a North Dakota movie, as much as I wished; except for two short scenes, the action takes place entirely in the state of Minnesota. And what a portrayal it is! Bitter winters, snow drifts, murders, kidnappings, bodies in woodchippers, prostitutes, grand theft auto, and "you betcha" by the truckload. It's not a half bad place to spend the Christmas season.

Honorable Mentions: Grumpy Old Men, Drop Dead Gorgeous

24. Mississippi - O Brother, Where Art Thou?

The second Coen brothers film in a row on this list, O Brother takes Homer's Odyssey (no, it's not a minivan) and shoves it into the deep south. If you have to escape from prison in a state so infested with mosquitoes that they've become the dominant intelligent species, then this state with its constant literary allusions isn't a half bad idea. Ain't half good, neither. No way, no how.

Honorable Mentions: Mississippi Burning, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

25. Missouri - The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery

So there's a bank. In St. Louis. And it got robbed by Steve McQueen, which you'd suppose would be a good thing, something to commemorate with a plaque and a small gift store, but I guess the folks wanted their money back. What can we say? Movies are allergic to this state.

Honorable Mentions: Tom Sawyer

26. Montana - A River Runs Through It

If I haven't admitted it yet, I'm deeply in love with the West -- its open spaces, its quiet, and its rivers always running through things, all willy-nilly. Might as well give Montana some fly fishing love with this low key biography.

Honorable Mentions: Legends of the Fall